Equality for all folks is goal yet to be met

Source: San Antonio Express-NewsAug.迷你倉出租 28--For people like civil rights activists Taj Matthews and Nettie Hinton, the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington isn't as much a celebration Wednesday as it is a reminder that despite all that has been accomplished, there's still much to do to make equality a reality for all.Emphasis on "for all.""Every low-performing school is in an urban community," Matthews said, as an example. As dropout rates go up, so do prison populations, he said, and new generations need to know more than snippets of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, "so they understand what these folks had to go through to get us to the table, to get us the opportunities."Hinton, who attended the historic march as well as commemorations Saturday in Washington, couldn't help but offer the cliche about change -- the more is achieved, most visibly in President Barack Obama, the more things stay the same.Obama is "reviled by so many people" and he's not alone -- civil rights leader "John Lewis marched across the bridge a year ago to approach Congress and had folks spit on him," Hinton said. "We're just in the latest chapter of trying to get civil rights for everybody in this country."That's what the Atlanta-based Points of Light organization is doing with its "Sunday Suppers" across the country, and it will conclude the series Thursday night at the San Antonio Museum of Art with an invitation-only dinner and panel featuring Mayor Julian Castro, Donald Graham of the Washington Post and grass-roots immigration reform leader Gaby Pacheco, among others.The event's focus: how to make the dream of equal educational opportunity a reality for the nation's growing Latino population.Since MLK Day in January, Points of Light has hosted similar events in seven U.S. cities, bringing a cross-section of people to sit "at the table of brotherhood" to discuss pressing issues, said Delores Morton, president of the nonprofit's programs division.It chose San Antonio because its population represents a living laboratory of t迷你倉e nation's changing demographics, she said. Group officials also noted its local affiliate, the United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County.The event is co-sponsored by Target. Henry R. Munoz III, the chairman of VIA Metropolitan Transit, was brought in by Points of Light to help build an audience, which will include the city's school superintendents and university presidents as well as civic, political, business and media leaders.Texas A&M University-San Antonio President Maria Hernandez Ferrier, who will attend, said the past half-century has shown much progress but she anticipates much more -- she has seen young parents bringing their children to the South Side campus, "instilling in them the expectation of a college education."In its third year, Sunday Suppers is built on the idea that people coming together around a dinner table can address a problem in a powerful way. It can be catalytic, Morton said.Ultimately, the program's goal is civil dialogue that spurs volunteerism.Matthews, grandson of civil rights leader the Rev. Claude Black, said real progress would occur when there's more doing than talking, more implementing programs than circumventing them, and when more teens realize the movement is ongoing."Think about it. It's been 50 years and a kid can't walk a neighborhood without being harassed," he said, referring to the Trayvon Martin case in Florida."Fifty years later, Latinos are debating immigration, and people are harassing them about whether they speak English," Matthews said. "And a kid sings the national anthem and is ridiculed in front of the nation," he said, referring to online hate speech spurred by San Antonio singer Sebastien de la Cruz's performance at the NBA Finals."We've got to get people together," he said. "The dream was not just one group of individuals. It was for all."Staff Writer Abe Levy contributed to this report.eayala@express-news.netCopyright: ___ (c)2013 San Antonio Express-News Visit the San Antonio Express-News at .mysanantonio.com Distributed by MCT Information Services儲存倉